UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
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Lê Thoại Bảo Trân

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL
NETWORKING INTEGRATION
SERVICE OF ONLINE RETAILER ON
CONSUMERS’ PURCHASE INTENT:
THE FACEBOOK CASE OF
HOCHIMINH CITY, VIETNAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Lê Thoại Bảo Trân

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL
NETWORKING INTEGRATION
SERVICE OF ONLINE RETAILER ON
CONSUMERS’ PURCHASE INTENT:
THE CASE OF HOCHIMINH CITY,
VIETNAM


research through survey questionnaire with a sample of 219 consumers who are living and
working in Hochiminh city, the result reveal that Website social presence, trust and
involvement have positive impact on consumers’ purchase intent. Implications of these
finding for e-retailers and future research are outlined.

Key words: Website social presence, trust, product attitude, involvement, purchase intent


TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF TABLES
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................1
1.1 Research background .............................................................................................1
1.2 Research gap ............... ...........................................................................................2
1.3 Research objectives ................................................................................................3
1.4 Research methodology and research scope ............................................................4
1.5 Research contribution .............................................................................................4
1.6 Research structure ..................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...............................................................................6
2.1 Online shopping and social networking services (Facebook case) ........................6
2.2 Consumers’ purchase intent ...................................................................................9
2.2.1. Consumer behavior .............................................................................................9
2.2.2. Step of a intention process ..............................................................................10
2.2.3. The impact of online social networks on consumers’ purchase intent ...............11
2.3 Website social presence ......................................................................................12
2.4 Trust ........................................................................................................................13



LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: A theoretical model .............................................................................................17
Figure 3.1: Research Process .................................................................................................18
Figure E1: Histogram of Purchase intent ...............................................................................61
Figure E2: Normal Plot of Purchase intent ............................................................................61
Figure E3: Scatter Plot of Purchase intent .............................................................................62


LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Source of data collection........................................................................................21
Table 3.2 Source of measurement scale .................................................................................22
Table 4.1 Respondents’ characteristics ..................................................................................28
Table 4.2 Reliability test result ..............................................................................................29
Table 4.3 Rotated component matrix (time 1)...................................................... .................30
Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett’s test result ...............................................................................31
Table 4.5 Rotated component matrix (time 2) .......................................................................32
Table 4.6 Correlations matrix ................ ...............................................................................35
Table 4.7 Model Summary of multiple regression analysis ..................................................36
Table 4.8 ANOVA of multiple regression analysis ............................................................... 36
Table 4.9 Coefficients of multiple regression analysis .........................................................37
Table 4.10 Summary of hypotheses testing results ................................................................ 40
Table D1: Total Variance Explained of factor analysis .........................................................60
Table D2: Model Summary of multiple regression analysis .................................................62


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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Schiffman, Kamk & Hansen (2008), diverse ranges of people have influence on consumers
such as family members, friends, co-workers, and group or individual that consumers would
like to compare themselves with them. The members of Facebook can design their profiles
and share information with other individual within the group. Group that may never meet in
the physical world but nevertheless they are able to affect purchase intents (Evans, Jamal &
Foxall, 2009).

This online social network is good place for consumers to get information and give
advices. In order to reduce the risk of buying a new product, many cosumers tend to search
the opinion of early adopters before making purchase intent. The use of social networks in
online shopping provides marketers and business with the new revenue opportunities, while
providing consumers with product information and both economic and social rewards for
sharing (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004).

As Vietnamese people still have a habit of trust when they can prehensile and directviewing goods. The purchase intents are often influenced by people who the consumer knows
and trust. However, since internet thriving and the time is more valuable, the e-business in
developing economics like Vietnam need to develop more utility shopping for customers.
No-one denies the performance of utility online shopping model. Therefore, the retailer shops
in Facebook are more and more popular particularly in Vietnam, especially in big city as
Hochiminh city.

1.2 Research gap

In the literature, many studies about online shopping environment have been
researched (Hassanein & Head, 2006; Hsu & Tsou, 2011; Huang & Chou & Lin, 2010).


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However, very few scholars do the research about social networking integration service of


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The relationship between trust and purchase intent.

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The relationship between involvement and purchase intent.

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The relationship between product attitude and purchase intent.

1.4 Research methodology and research scope:
This study uses questionnaire to collect data. The survey questionnaire is gotten from
credit sources and developed in English and then translate into Vietnamese. In order to make
clear of the Vietnamese version questionnaire, the in-depth interviewof five people are
conducted before the survey is implemented in mass. Then the analyzing of the collected data
are processed by SPSS software with three main stages. First, Cronbach‟s Alpha is used to
test the reliability of the measurement scale. Then, the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is
used to check the validity of the measurement scale. Finally, multiple regression are
employed to investigate the relationship between factors in the research model.
This study choses Hochiminh city in Vietnam to examine the online shops in
Facebook since Hochiminh city is the big city in Vietnam and is the potential market for
study this research. The respondents of this study are the people who live in Hochiminh city
and know or have experience in online shopping in Facebook.
1.5 Research contribution

This study empirically explores how the social networking integration service of
online retailers in Facebook influences on consumers‟ purchase intent. Based on the findings

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter mainly presents the theories, which are derived from many scholars in
academic field about each factor in the research model. Firstly, social networking integration
services are introduced to clarify the online shopping in Facebook definition. In addition, the
study introduces more about the online word of mount communication as a part of social
networks, consumers‟ purchase behavior and their roles influence to purchase intent. Second,
the literature review of each constructs, including website social presence, trust, product
attitude and involvement are discussed respectively. Finally, research model and relationship
hypothesize between these constructs are proposed and discussed.
2.1 Online shopping and social networking services (Facebook case)

Nowadays, most offline retailers have set up online retail shops directly or by thirdparties to increase revenues. We can find that lots of online retailers have begun to connect
their websites with social networks, like Facebook.

A social networking service (SNS) is an online service that focuses on establishing
and reflecting social networks or social interaction between families, friends, and also for
gaining new friends over the internet. These networks often include such services as e-mail
and instant messaging. SNS users can share their favorites, and habits in physical life on
social networks, and personal pages can represent each of them through profile, social links.
The rich of personal profile and personal social network, the most valuable asset of social
network services carry out.

Social networking integration means to connect your website with online networks so
that you can use your user‟s “social graph” in their online social network to connect their
activities with their online network friends. This service is provided by social network sites;



opinions, and experiences on their common interests (Ridings & Gefen, 2004). Virtual
communities can help consumers to find information about specific company, product, and
service. Online social networks have become more trustworthy and relevant information
source than direct information from companies, thus consumers enjoy the interaction and
communication with each other and like to receive advice either positive or negative about
different products services on online social networks.
The growth of online participation and discussion has made consumers to impact the
products and brands (Riegner, 2007). The research of Riegner has been shown online users
spent 27 percent of their time on communication activities, such as social networking sites,


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blog, email, and also 27 percent for leisure and entertainment which is more than the time
they spent together read news and personal activities
According to Shin, Park & Ju (2012), the integration tools of Facebook have some
common characteristics: (1) The convenience feature are for easy to use and share, example
the “like” option let you share your favorite things by one click, and the “registration” plug-in
let you login to the website with simple registration process, just use Facebook ID to login to
multiple websites. (2) The surveillance feature, such as “Facepile” and “Login” button allows
you log in your Facebook in the website, and to monitor who liked your page or did some
activities in your pages, it displays and shares the related activities and interest of stranger.
(3) Personalization feature connect your activities with your friends, such as
“Recommendation” plug-in let users who use the Facebook ID login to the website to get
some recommendations based on the user‟s Facebook profile

In addition, the study introduces more about the online word of mount communication
as a part of social networks to make clear about the sense of sociability in website, instead of
the sense of sociability in traditional market. Silverman (2001) indicates that word-of-mouth
(WOM) in traditional communication theory considers as processing strongly influence on


other

consumers‟

recommendations before making any purchase intent especially when it comes to buy new
products.
2.2 Consumer’s purchase intent
Purchase intent can be used to predict actual purchase behavior (Morrison, 1979). In
this study, purchase intent is defined as consumers‟ intention to purchase products from the
firms in the future.
Before investigate the impact of social networks on purchase intent, the study
introduces more about the consumers‟ purchase behavior, the steps of an intention process
and their roles influence to purchase intent.

2.2.1 Consumer behavior
Consumer behavior is defined as “the study of the process involved when individuals
or group select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy
needs and desires.” (Solomon et al., 2010, p6).
Another definition of consumer behavior of Bennett (1989) is “the dynamic
interaction of affect and cognition, behavior, and environmental events by which human
being conduct the exchange aspects of their lives”
Study of consumer behavior of Lantos (2011) indicates one of the important aspects
of consumer behavior is market segmentation, the customer within the segment are more or


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less similar in term of products needs and desires. In addition, Solomon, et al. (2010) finds
out market segmentation consists of variously categories for instance demographics (age,

complex and consist of different process and stages.
Once consumers have found their relevant alternatives and evaluated them, they
should make their choice among the alternatives. The different types of intention influence on
the level and direction of the search (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010)
This stage is important of intention process, it determines the quality of intention and
how well the choice worked out. In this stage, consumers start to compare their perceptions
of the product with their expectations (Kardes, et al., 2011)
The impact of online social networks on customer’s purchase intent

One of the interested things is that before deciding to purchase a certain item, instead
of listening to productions‟ advertisement or professional‟s consultant, Vietnamese people
often listen to the opinion of relationship people (AC Nielsen, 2013)

AC Nielsen survey shows that 92 percent respondent said that they are interested to
the opinion of relationship people before deciding to purchase a certain item. In addition, 63
percent also said that they often find the sharing experience on internet about the product
before purchasing

According to the research firm, more and more Vietnamese people use the internet as
a method to shop. This trend is inevitable since the Internet is spreading all over the country
and the numbers of people who own the connecting internet devices are increasing.


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2.3 Website social presence

Cyr et al. (2007) defines social presence within a website as the feeling or sense of
warmth and sociability. The users recognize that the website develops a psychological
connection, human contact, interaction and personal.

Trust is complex concept that has been widely studied. Although there may many
ways to present this concept, the most commonly cited definition of trust in different contexts
is the “willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the
important to the trustee” (Mayer et al., 1995). The more trusting we are, the more willing we
maybe to take the risk of interaction. For instance, consumers will be more willing to
purchase products from a seller if they can trust that the seller will not take advantage of the
consumers‟ vulnerabilities (Geykens et al., 1996)
Trust can be used as an important construct, mechanism to explain interpersonal
behavior under social institution. Social psychologists justify that the trust relationship may
occur interpersonal or inter-organizational, stressing individual behavior with consistency and
predictable well-intentioned behavior (Doney, Canon, & Mullen, 1998)
Nowadays, the development of information technology, consumers confuse with the
generally-used mass marketing techniques and lack trust in the authenticity of goods or
services. Facebook marketing is a newly typed marketing pattern in recent years. Facebook
are a new sharing method for youth consumers, where the Facebooker can interact with each
other through direct comment on an unofficial basis and thus provide viewers with a
situational description of daily life that is closely linked with their attention and interest.
Shneiderman (2000) indicates that the recommendations from past or present users or
from a third party can help the promotion of the trust of consumer towards the website.
Briggs, et al. (2002) points out the website design is the most important things, the
website should look and feel appealing and transmission information should be reliable and


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trustworthy, with clear and real service, including links to relevant alternative opinions or
products.
Gefen at el (2003) conducts research into the consumers‟ trust toward a shopping site,
when the trust increases, their purchase intent will accordingly increase, as the shopping site
not only satisfies the traditional buyer-seller relation, but also reduces the risk of online


Wu et al. (2008) indicates that as far as involvement is concerned, online information
recipients are appreciable differences in terms of either their willingness to believe online
consumption rumors or their own consumption behavior and intention.

This study bases on definition of involvement created by Zaichkowsky (1985),
defines involvement with shops in Facebook as the perceived relevance of the Facebook to
the consumer based on inherent needs, values, and interests of the consumer. Involvement is
an encouragement and leads consumer to spend more time searching for information to make
the right choices (Celsi & Olson, 1998; Greenwald & Leavitt, 1984). Consumers who are
highly involved with a shop in Facebook regard the Facebook as an important source of
consumption information and perceive its content more intensively. In addition, such
consumers are also gain stronger experiences from browsing Facebook, thus including their
purchase intents. For example, highly involved consumers are more likely to remind
themselves of interesting activities when they are interacting with the content of Facebook. In
contrast, low-involvement consumers simply accept the information that they encounter on
Facebook and have low motivation to reflect upon their actions or relations with other people.
Therefore, this study proposes that hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: the consumer‟s involvement is positive impact to the consumers‟
purchase intent.

2.6 Product attitude
Zhang (1986) defines attitude as an individual‟s persistent and consistent tendency
toward matter of surrounding conditions, people, which can be forecasted by individuals‟
behavior. Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) indicate that attitude is a certain observation of a
subject‟s like or dislike evaluation and state, views based on the cognitive appreciation of


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